The web is a dangerous place, devoid of the rules, regulations and rationality of the physical world.   People feel comfortable sharing things on social network sites and public forums that they would never say in person.  Politics, religion, sex; nothing is out of bounds on line, because people feel safe in their own homes, or in the office behind their monitors.  They often never face their opponents or fans. They don’t have to because the internet offers them a buffer between their ideas and the real world.  In a sense, they are anonymous.  There is no requirement to register your real name or location online.  You will never be stopped by an officer and asked to see identification.  You can be whoever you want to be, but if Eric Schmidt, CEO of Google is correct, this will all change in the near future.

Speaking at last month’s Techonomy conference, Google CEO Eric Schmidt made some ominous predictions about the future of anonymity on the web.  Speaking about anti-social behavior and data online, Schmidt said “The only way to manage this is true transparency and no anonymity,” Schmidt said. “In a world of asynchronous threats, it is too dangerous for there not to be some way to identify you. We need a [verified] name service for people. Governments will demand it.”

Anonymity is synonymous with privacy, but is anonymity a prerequisite for privacy?  That depends on who you ask.  The CEO of Google believes that anonymity is a threat to society.  In a video interview Schmidt stated “Privacy is incredibly important.  Privacy is not the same thing as anonymity…But if you are trying to commit a terrible, evil crime, it’s not obvious that you should be able to do so with complete anonymity.”

What Schmidt states is arguably true, but it begs the question: If you are not committing a terrible, evil crime, should your anonymity be compromised? How do you tell the difference? For those who value their privacy, and don’t want their personal lives interrupted by anyone, be it advertisers, employers, people with nothing better to do, or the government, should they have to give up their anonymity to appease governmental prosecution efforts?

It is clear that Schmidt is correct about dwindling anonymity.  Logging requirements in Europe are becoming more and more harsh.  Emails must be saved for six months in the UK, web activity must be save for at least 4 days.  Ease of prosecution is being sold as safety to a increasingly complacent public and in many cases, the public buys into it.

Opponents of internet anonymity often argue that if one is doing nothing wrong, then there is nothing to hide, and one should submit to the logging, and tracking because no harm will come of it.  It may be true that no physical harm will come, but the freedom that is lost, when you must rely on trust alone to protect privacy is too large a cost to bear.  It is why there are locks on bathroom doors, and indeed bathroom doors at all.  Sometimes it is just wrong to stare at someone and log their activities when they have the reasonable expectation of privacy and anonymity.